Schools lead Chile into a bright future

I’m impressed. As a statistician, I realize that schools who agree to pilot new educational software are exceptional, but based on these exceptional schools I’ve visited, Chile has a bright future.

I’m not one of those Americans who go to another country and immediately start bashing it because it’s different. I like Chile and there are many good things about it, I’ve written about in The Start-up Diaries, like how ‘chill’ Chileans are. However, “Chilecon Valley” is a new concept. It’s being helped by Startup Chile, of course, but still, when students are thinking of what they want to do for a career, they’re much more likely to think of going to work for a big company than starting a company that grows to be big.

If you want students to lead a new economy, you need to expose them to entrepreneurs

For the last few months we have been working with teachers and students from Juan Pablo II in Santiago and from nine micro-schools (think one-room schoolhouse) in Tomé. They’ve given us their feedback on existing games, like Making Camp Bilingual, as well as new, Spanish language games under development, like Siglo de Cambio. For the next few months, while Chilean schools are on summer break (yes, it’s almost summer here), we’ll be implementing their suggestions.